excerpted from Göedel, Escher, Bach - by Douglas Hofstadter
Full chapter available on ScribdAchilles: I forgot, Mr. Tortoise-I've got this lamp with me! But-what's magic about it? Tortoise: Oh, you know, just the usual-a genie.Achilles: What? You mean a genie comes out when you rub it, and grants you wishes?Tortoise: Right. What did you expect? Pennies from heaven?Achilles: Well, this is fantastic! I can have any wish want, eh? I've always wished this would happen to me ...(And so Achilles gently rubs the large letter `L' which is etched on the lamp's copper surface ... Suddenly a huge puff of smoke appears, and in the forms of the smoke the five friends can make out a weird, ghostly figure towering above them.)Genie: Hello, my friends – and thanks ever so much for rescuing my Lamp from the evil Lizard-Duo.(And so saying, the Genie picks up the Lamp, and stuffs it into a pocket concealed among the folds of his long ghostly robe which swirls out of the Lamp.)Genie:As a sign of gratitude for your heroic deed, I would like to offer you, on the part of my Lamp, the opportunity to have any three of your wishes realized.Achilles: How stupefying! Don't you think so, Mr. T?Tortoise: I surely do. Go ahead, Achilles, take the first wish.Achilles: Wow! But what should I wish? Oh, I know! It's what I thought of the first time I read the Arabian Nights (that collection of silly (and nested) tales)-I wish that I had a HUNDRED wishes, instead of just three! Pretty clever, eh, Mr. T? I bet YOU never would have thought of that trick. I always wondered why those dopey people in the stories never tried it themselves.Tortoise: Maybe now you'll find out the answer.Genie: I am sorry, Achilles, but I don't grant metawishes.Achilles: I wish you'd tell me what a "meta-wish" is!
Full excerpt to be continued here

Great thread really. I wish Bangladesh becomes one of the top countries in the world soon. Really want this before I die. By top, I mean in every way, not jusy cricket!Posted via BC Mobile Edition (Blackberry)

if i wuz doctor yunus i would be going for nobel prize in literature, econocmics, physics..lol...

But not with the Yunus part... He is in trouble with one Nobel.. If he gets another one.. Hasina will hang him without trial.. And so many?? He will die on the streets of Dhaka..labeled as brainless incompetent Bangali...